Dancing Shadows
by terracannon876
Summary: Life as Tanuma Kaname had always been different. Friendless, strange, prone to bouts of sickness. He saw things no one else did and often wished he could see more.


Not the work I'm most satisfied with, but I don't think I'll be editing it anymore in the near future, so, up it goes.

I like Tanuma a lot, but he's not very ... plot-bunny inspiring. No offense, Tanuma.

Everything about Tanuma's family history is completely pulled out of thin air. Everything about his past too.

I tried to focus on how Tanuma's outlook might've been different from Natsume's.

Read and enjoy!

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><p><strong>Dancing Shadows<strong>

The first time Tanuma Kaname knew he was different was when he fell in second grade. Everyone had thought he'd tripped, until they saw he'd never gotten up. The teachers had rushed him to the infirmary, but no one could find anything wrong with him. All he remembered was waking up to a blanched world of white and the magnetic pull of fatigue.

It had happened again, and again. His parents, worried sick metaphorically and sometimes literally, tried every method they could think of, but nothing helped. Not the doctors, not the therapists. They moved again and again (it was a lucky thing that his mom had a very portable job – all she needed was a computer and her glasses and she was off) in a desperate effort to help him. Perhaps it was the air, the pollution of the city, or maybe the water of the town? Perhaps he was allergic to something?

All he knew at his age was that they kept moving. Kaname had always been a quiet boy – everyone said so and his mother always hugged him, arms around his head, pulling him tight into her warmth, as she cooed over how he never made a peep – so it was both fortunate and unfortunate that he never made many friends. It was a familiar progression. He always kept to himself, wondering when they would talk to him. He would try to talk to others, but lose his flighty courage at the last second. He would finally manage to talk to them. He would collapse and his "condition" would rear its ugly head and, before long, his family would move again and he'd never see any one of his former classmates again.

It didn't help that when he was younger, he was teased for his apparent narcolepsy. When he got older, that changed to looks of sympathy and pity.

And when he got older, the bouts of sleeping disappeared, only to be replaced by stomachaches, headaches, a sudden squeezing around his lungs and heart as though an icy claw had reached inside his ribcage and gripped his insides.

By this time, his mom was sicker than ever before, and when she finally let out her last breath, he had cried by her bedside. His father was there, too, and peering down with misty eyes hidden behind pearly glasses, he had let himself mourn for precisely a month before pulling Kaname aside and telling him the harsh truth.

There was simply no money left to more than once more.

At his age, Kaname understood the sacrifices that his parents had made for him and he didn't throw a tantrum like most children would. He nodded and asked if there was anything he could do to help.

A pat on the head, a warm smile. "Just continue to be our son," was the simple answer.

If possible, they didn't want to move anymore, so Kaname actually made an effort to talk to others. It was a strange experience and he supposed they probably thought him a bit strange because he was always a bit hesitant (what did normal people do when talking to their classmates?), but he did try.

Perhaps he could make a friend by the end of the year.

But then, something happened that ripped all thoughts of this goal from his mind.

Even now, Kaname can't pin down the specifics. It's all a mess, with shadows and bursts of wind and leaves and everything whipping about. He had seen a dark shadow and, never seeing anything like it before, he had followed it. He saw the dark shadow slow, stop, shift, and then after that he didn't remember anything. All he knew was that when he finally opened his eyes, it was night and he was on the ground, staring up at the starless sky.

His father was worried, but no matter what he said, Kaname couldn't alleviate his worries because he didn't even know what had happened.

Ever since that day, though, he started seeing things. Shadows here and there, vague shapes as though someone had shielded the world from him with a mirror and left a giant smudge there in the process. He sometimes followed the shadows but every time he did so he found himself suffering a memory lapse, so he stopped. Perhaps observing at a distance was safer.

His father still worried. It was a year before Kaname finally told him the truth. It wasn't a question of whether his father believed him or not; his father had always believed him, and so Kaname had always told the truth when he could. It was more the fact that Kaname knew no one else could see the shadows and, if only he could see it, then perhaps something was wrong with him? His father didn't deserve a defective son.

But instead, his father had embraced him, and while his warmth was different from that of his mother from so long past, it was a safe and secure warmth. "I will help you no matter what," he had said with a soft voice and kind eyes. Kaname, though a grown boy who, like any grown boy, never cried, had admittedly shed a few tears that day.

It was another year before his father came up with a satisfactory answer – a year of chasing fleeting figures and of blissfully ignoring the strange glances he got in response.

Never before had Kaname thought about what, exactly, he was chasing. He had always assumed it was an elusive cat or perhaps a fox. Never before had the thought of him seeing demons ever occurred to him. Not that it bothered him much, knowing the identity of what he'd been pursuing this whole time.

What his father said next, though, had surprised him.

"I wish to help you," he said, "but we don't have any money left. I don't believe that this is something to be cured. If what you're seeing really are spirits, then you have a gift that only a few are granted with."

"I finally found a job, one as a priest." This he said with an embarrassed chuckle because, for as long as Kaname had lived, his father had never held a steady job. It was another one of the sacrifices they had made for him. "I'll have to shave my head and study for the first time in twenty years, but I think it will do me some good. I found a cheap shrine not far from here; it's well-maintained but there are rumors of spiritual inhabitants, so I'll have to evacuate them first if they're the cause of your pain."

A priest was not a well-paying job, though a well-respected one. They would get by, though. They always had. Kaname didn't have any preferences on where to live, so he had just nodded and promised that he would help any way he could.

A year of hard studying on his father's part and a strange but refreshing meditative journey later (his father never told him the details of that trip), the two were ready for their final move.

It was the first time he'd ever been excited, though. Excited to find out if his father was right and excited at the prospect of seeing more of the mysterious figures that haunted the edge of his perception. As he'd gotten older, the pain had subsided a little and it was now mere headaches and fatigue, leaving him with less dread and more curiosity and wonder at the unknown.

The moment he set foot into the shrine, he knew his father was right on both accounts. His aches were probably caused by spirits, and there were definitely spirits nearby. Unhappy with his son's reaction, his father had immediately set to work exorcising the demons. Kaname couldn't find it in his heart to stop his father's earnest efforts.

It was a nice place, though. Not at all like the apartment he'd been living in – more open, more Japanese-styled than the walls of concrete – but he found himself adjusting to the idea rapidly.

When he entered the final room and heard the lapping of waves and the occasional splash, and when he looked up to see the shapes of koi wriggling their way across the walls and looked down to see nothing but the blades of grass waving in the wind, he knew which room to claim as his. The fish were nothing like the unusual flitters of shadow that danced tantalizingly out of reach. They lazily swam back and forth and, as Kaname set his bags down and lay sprawled across the floor, he found himself relaxing and imagining what sort of patterns clothed their scales.

The water, though invisible, reflected light and shadows that weaved delicate patterns across the corner of his room.

He fell asleep not long after, just watching the shifting shapes. He knew his condition was always changing and he could only hope that, one day, he could see the fish swimming through water rather than across a flat ceiling.


End file.
